Who are SSDs for?

Much faster program and game loading, meaning that you don’t have to wait as long for your program or your game (including levels) to load.

A system that feels more responsive.

A quick recap on what a SSD is:

You know those flash chips that are used in USB sticks and SD cards? A SSD is basically several of those chips working in parallel with a controller to bring you higher performance and higher reliability.

Benefits of a SSD:

There are many advantages to a SSD compared to a traditional spinning mechanical hard drive, such as:

No noise because of no moving parts.

Lower heat emission compared to hard drives.

Lower power consumption and as a result: Longer battery life for laptops

Much more resistant to shock and vibration, making them less likely to fail from that.

Much lower latency (~0.07ms compared to 7-9ms).

Much higher transfer rates for reading and writing files in all type of scenarios.

Performance:

If you’re coming from a computer with a hard drive, any SSD will offer performance that will be much better. However, saying that all SSDs are the same would be a lie.

While peak transfer rates for most SSDs is limited by the SATA III interface, higher-end models will offer much higher sustained performance, meaning that they offer higher performance when under a heavy workload.

The average gamer will be best served by an entry-level SSD. If you use your PC for work and/or you can use or want every bit of performance, aim for a higher-end SSD.

SSDs recommended by Hardware Revolution and SSDs failure rates

PC upgrade: You may need a 2.5″ to 3.5″ drive bay adapter
Some older PC case don’t support 2.5″ drives (SSDs are 2.5″ drives) out of the box. You need to get a 2.5″ to 3.5″ drive bay adapter. Most SSDs don’t include one.